


Exceeds Expectations

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dating, Derek is a Failwolf, Fluff, M/M, slightly cracky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1590902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his latest girlfriend attempted to kill all of those nearest and dearest to him, Derek decided he needed to rethink his dating strategies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exceeds Expectations

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an adorable idea I saw on tumblr.

After his latest girlfriend attempted to kill all of those nearest and dearest to him, Derek decided he needed to rethink his dating strategies. First and foremost, he planned to instigate some sort of vetting process to try and weed out the truly psychotic and/or homicidal potential love interests, for the safety of the town if nothing else. So thorough was his process that the mishmash of teenagers he accidentally surrounded himself with had finished high school, graduated college and returned to Beacon Hills before he managed to find himself a single date.

And no, Derek didn’t get snippy when Stiles had turned to him, eyes wide with a combination of surprise and hope, asking, “Still single?” Snapping, “Don’t worry, the town is still safe,” was a perfectly rational response, thank you very much. Derek isn’t sensitive about the subject.

The next part of Derek’s dating plans involved only dating those already in the know about supernatural creatures. He was not ashamed of being a werewolf. And he found it made people more accepting of the way he lived his life. Leaving dirty socks all over the place tended to pale in comparison with the fact that he could turn into a beast at will. It also reduced the amount of irritating sneaking around and lying, only to have to reveal the truth in a moment of great danger when his date is either being threatened so he will comply, or laughing mockingly at him while they point out how he has inadvertently caused the town’s doom.

This was proving quite a complicated issue, because on the one hand he didn’t really feel comfortable exposing someone who was blissfully ignorant to the horrors of his world, but on the other, the only people who already knew about werewolves were his pack-mates. And much as it made his heart swell to know that he was a valued member of Scott’s pack, it meant he found himself spending an awful lot of time starting at Stiles wondering why only hot girls and nerdy boys ever seemed to be in the know about the supernatural. 

Not that the two terms were mutually exclusive. No one could ever accuse Lydia of being unintelligent and Stiles was by no means unattractive. He was freckled, sure, but they were strangely appealing. And he hadn’t really outgrown his long, slender gazelle-like limbs, but even if he never seemed in control of what they were doing, when stationary they certainly weren’t repulsive. In fact, when they were flapping about, Derek found he couldn’t look away, itching to catch the young man before he fell face-first onto the floor, happy to just watch Stiles’s enthusiasm pour out of him, as though he couldn’t physically contain it. 

Finally, Derek was quite concerned that as his girlfriends all seemed to be interested in using him to further their interests, namely the slaughtering of innocents, he had no idea if he was any good at being someone’s boyfriend. After all, it appeared the only time he had been in a relationship where the other person was actually interested in him was when he was fifteen. And even if the part where he had to perform a mercy killing on the girl in question was ignored, he had still been a fifteen year old dickhead. The whole relationship provided him with little advice beyond a long list of what not to do.

Derek wanted a real relationship. Someone to love and cherish. Someone to love him in return. He wanted companionship, laughter and warmth. 

The second last thing he expected was to want all of this with Stiles.

The last thing he expected was for Stiles to want all of this with him.

 

“Derek I... See the thing is, you’re a man,” Stiles said. “Not that you need me to tell you this, and in fact my point is not that you are a man. I’m not saying you aren’t a man! What I meant to say is that you are an _attractive_ man, which is also probably not news to you, except what you might not realise is that _I_ find you attractive and, if possible, I would like to get all up on you. Thank you for listening, I’ll go and put my head in an oven now.”

“I think that only works properly if you have a gas oven,” Derek replied. Which was not what he had meant to say _at all_. Mostly, he had wanted to tell Stiles he was crazy, and since when did Stiles even like him, let alone _like_ like him, and oh god why did he still talk like a teenager when he wasn’t forced to spend time with them any more. 

“Oh,” Stiles said. “Well that’s good to know. So you think it’s the gas inhalation that kills people, not the heat? Or do you think it’s some combination of both?”

“I’m pretty sure they suffocate,” Derek said, despite the fact that he had now had enough time to process the fact that Stiles apparently harboured romantic feelings for him, and was wanting to discuss this further. Particularly in light of the fact that Derek was beginning to suspect the harbouring of feelings might go both ways.

“Yeah.” Stiles nodded. “That would make sense. So was that advice? Or a hint I should go and we never speak of this again?”

“No,” Derek said. “The getting up on me, were you thinking only interested in a one time thing, or something more permanent?”

Stiles looked at Derek, eyes wide. “Uh, long term, I guess. But I don’t think I would say no to one night of crazy monkey sex.”

Derek nodded. 

 

The final part of Derek’s plan was that he would only date someone he trusted enough to let them know he didn’t know what he was doing. The final part of Derek’s plan involved that which he hated more than anything else: talking about his feelings.

 

“I think you should know I’m not very good at this,” Derek said, brushing his hand down Stiles’s arm. Stiles shivered and looked at him incredulously.

“Not very good at make-out sessions? Because I have some numb lips, a stubble burned chin and an aching dick that would strongly disagree. But feel free to inspect the evidence,” Stiles added, grinning lewdly and sliding Derek’s hand down towards his crotch.

“No,” Derek said, leaning in to kiss Stiles and neatly hide the goofy smile Stiles irritatingly brought out in him. When he was convinced he had control over his facial features once more, Derek withdrew. “I’m not very good with this,” Derek gestured vaguely between the two of them, frowning. “Relationships.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, surprised. Then realisation filled his face. “Relationships. Because of.. And... And wasn’t there...? Well, it should please you to know I have no plans to kill anyone innocent. Or anyone at all, really. I even have very few people I want to maim.”

“Stiles.” Derek groaned and buried his face in Stiles’s neck. This conversation was already failing to reach the low expectations he had.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, running his hands through Derek’s hair. “Was that in bad taste?”

“Yes,” Derek said, making sure to keep his voice light, the comment a whining complaint, not a serious correction. Much as he might never actually admit it, Derek rather liked Stiles’s morbid sense of humour and complete lack of tact. He lifted his head. “But I’ll have you know that I now carefully vet my potential dates to avoid homicidal maniacs, so not wanting to kill people isn’t enough any more.”

“Oh?” Stiles said, sounding amused. “So you have some sort of dating scheme, then? Step one: no-one interested in harvesting the blood of the innocent. What’s step two?”

Derek felt himself flush. “Only date people who already know about werewolves,” he muttered.

“That’s actually pretty smart,” Stiles said. “I think Michael was the only person I dated who didn’t think it was weird that Scott sometimes liked to sniff me, and the Lydia kept calling me up in the middle of the night before some horrible murder was in the news. Actually, I’m lucky no one ever accused me of being friends with a serial killer, to be honest. So much for college being the place where you date the smartest people you will ever meet.”

“Scott still scents you?” Derek asked, not letting disappointment seep into his tone because that would be ridiculously childish.

Stiles shrugged. “Just when he was drunk, or if I came into contact with any other werewolves. So what’s step three in Derek’s plan to score the perfect date?”

Derek found a terribly interesting spot on his wall and stared at it. “Talking.”

Stiles burst out laughing and Derek defensively curled his shoulders in.

“Sorry,” Stiles said, gasping for air. “It’s just that’s so _normal_. I really wasn’t expecting my werewolf boyfriend to say that the only way he can see our relationship working is if we have clear and honest communication.”

“That’s not what I said,” Derek protested.

“‘Stay away from me during the full moon,’; ‘Never bite me, even in play,’; ‘Don’t buy me silver jewellery.’ That’s the sort of thing you expect to hear when your supernatural significant other discusses relationship rules,” Stiles said, smirking at Derek. “Not, ‘Darling, it’s important that we clear the air quickly and don’t let things fester.’”

“I didn’t say ‘darling’!” Derek said.

“No,” Stiles said. “But everything you say is much more amusing to me if I pretend you scowl and drop an affectionate nickname afterwards.”

“Stiles, I wanted to have a proper talk with you,” Derek said.

Stiles furrowed his brow and frowned. “Sweetheart.”

Derek growled and leaned over to nip at Stiles’s collar bone.

“Cheeky!” Stiles said, swatting Derek away and rubbing the bite. “Okay, okay, we can talk. What’s on your mind, honeybuns?”

Derek glared at Stiles. “I just don’t have any experience with successful relationships and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making a mess of things.”

Stiles practically melted at this, scrambling forward on the couch until he was practically sitting in Derek’s lap, tilting Derek’s head back so he could kiss him deeply.

 

“Right, so obviously after the back massages, wake-up blow jobs and daily pancake procural, the rest of the relationship stuff doesn’t fall as neatly into mandatory daily tasks,” Stiles said, digging enthusiastically into his pancakes. Derek leaned subtly forward, recognising Stiles was finally moving on from the joke instructions on dating, to more serious advice. They had been dating for nearly three months and Derek wasn’t sure if Stiles was ever going to feel like he could talk frankly about what makes relationships work. As far as Derek could tell, Stiles hadn’t had any serious relationships in college, the longest ending after eight months when the girl realised she was still seeing the person she went out with for a night of casual fun. The next longest relationship Stiles could boast about lasted less than two months. If anything, it was a nice surprise that Stiles had given it some thought, and come up with some ideas.

“One of the most important parts of dating is trust,” Stiles said. Derek silently squashed down the realisation that he found Stiles weirdly adorable when he talked with his mouth full. “Now, you would think that because you apparently vetted me for murdering habits, and we have all of that history of saving each other’s lives, we should have this trust thing down, right?”

Derek nodded, resisting the urge to lick maple syrup from Stiles’s fingers.

“Well you would be wrong,” Stiles said. “That’s only part of it. You might trust me not to kill you in your sleep, and I might trust you to save my ass if, I don’t know, a tree comes to life and decides to avenge its family, selecting me as its target because I continued to use notebooks in class rather than a laptop like all of those tree respecting hippies in my philosophy classes. But that’s not enough in a relationship. We also have to trust each other not to break our hearts and crawl into bed with the first buff fireman or buxom waitress we come across.”

“Why would I cheat on you?” Derek asked. Stiles smiled sadly.

“If it’s a lonely night, and we’ve just had a huge fight because I’ve claimed to not be in the mood, saying I have a headache when really I’m mad at you for spending all of your time in the office, leaving me at home with the kids, slaving over a hot stove, and getting no appreciation for taking the wine stains out of your best shirt, and you’re starting to feel old and unattractive, and a pretty young thing catches your eye and winks at you, and you’re feeling light and free after a few fingers of wolfsbane infused whisky, what, are you telling me you wouldn’t go for it?” Stiles said.

“I don’t have an office job,” Derek said. “I don’t have any job.”

“Well no,” Stiles said.

“And werewolves age differently, I’m not going to start to feel old and unattractive until long after you’ve gone grey, by which point I’ll probably be relieved that you will finally stop sulking about having more wrinkles than me, even though I’m half a decade older than you,” Derek continued.

“Wait, you’re going to age differently?” Stiles said. “Dude, we may need to have a proper talk about werewolves. You’ve been strangely evasive on the subject of knots, and now I hear you _age_ differently?”

“Not to mention that if anyone’s shirts are going to have stains on them, it’s going to be you,” Derek said.

“Hey! I am capable of spilling wine on shirts that aren’t my own,” Stiles said.

“And I find it highly unlikely that _you_ would be turning down sex. You’re the one who seems to always want to be having it.” Derek paused, paling as he realised what this meant. “You don’t mind, do you? That I don’t always want to have sex?”

“What?” Stiles said, surprised. “No. No. It’s fine. Better than fine, it’s great. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love having sex with you, but just because I am perpetually in the mood doesn’t mean I don’t love snuggling instead, or going to see a movie, or hell, we could do our taxes together and I would still be happy.”

“Oh,” Derek said. His chest swelled and seemed to lighten, as though someone was filling it. “That's- I would also like to do taxes together.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Derek longed to shove them back, but Stiles just beamed at him.

“So trust,” Derek said, desperate to fill the air with something other than his own stupidity.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, sounding dazed, unable to stop smiling. “I think we’ve pretty firmly established that. Um, sometimes couples will do this thing for fun, as a way to demonstrate they trust their partner and aren’t going to get insanely jealous because their partner is still human and will find other people attractive.”

“Right,” Derek said. “So I trust you and won’t get angry if you say someone at work is hot. Is that what you mean?”

“Exactly,” Stiles said. “So the thing we’re going to do, is called the Guilt Free Three. Basically, you pick three celebrities you fancy, and I will do the same, and the rule is if we ever meet one of these celebrities, we’re allowed to sleep with them.”

Derek frowned.

“I mean, the point is that it’s so unlikely you’ll ever actually meet the celebrity, so you wouldn’t _actually_ cheat, and meanwhile you’ve agreed to never have an affair with someone else, because you’ve agreed to only have an affair with one of these people, who you are never going to meet, so you’ve really agreed to never cheat,” Stiles added hastily.

Derek’s frown softened from dislike into confusion. “So why don’t we just agree to never cheat?”

“This way is more fun,” Stiles said. “And it’s a chance to practise telling each other we fancy someone without having to get mad because it’s unlikely we’ll ever meet them.”

Derek sighed, but nodded. “Okay.”

They spent two hours discussing celebrities and drinking copious amounts of wine, laughing and teasing each other as their suggestions got sillier and sillier. By the end of the night, they each had their lists and Derek was able to lick Stiles’s sticky fingers clean, and Stiles was able to convince Derek that pancakes were a very sensible dinner food.

 

“Derek!” Stiles called out as he opened the door to the loft.

“Kitchen!” Derek called back, frowning at the convection microwave oven monstrosity he seemed to have acquired.

“Dude!” Stiles said excitedly, hurtling into the kitchen, and jumping up on the bench. “You will never guess what has happened.”

Derek gave the microwave one final glare and turned to Stiles. “What?”

“ _Jennifer Lawrence is in town,_ ” Stiles said. The name sounded familiar, but Derek couldn’t place it.

“Oh?” Derek said.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “She’s visiting some relative or it’s a charity thing or something, but the point is my dad was notified because they’re worried about security or the paparazzi, I don’t really know, my brain basically heard Jennifer Lawrence and shut down.”

Suddenly, the name clicked. She was one of Stiles’s celebrities Derek had agreed to let him sleep with and not get upset. And she was in town. Derek felt a little bit like he had been plunged into one of Deaton’s ice baths.

“Right,” Derek said. He took a deep breath and leaned in to brush a peck to Stiles’s lips. “Well, good luck and have fun and thanks for letting me know.”

Derek turned and left the kitchen, dragging his feet towards the stairs. This was about trust, Derek told himself. This was for the good of their relationship. He desperately wished he had clarified at the time if the Guilt Free Three meant one sexual encounter, or if it meant Stiles would just end up dating both of them. It had to be the first, Derek couldn’t bear to think what would happen if it was the second. Why would Stiles stay with him if he could be with a gorgeous celebrity? One of his top three favourite celebrities. What did Derek have to offer in comparison to that?

Just as Derek was trying to work out how to best drown his sorrows, Stiles hurtled into him, nearly knocking him over.

“Derek,” Stiles said, sounding half amused, half pained. He grabbed Derek’s shoulder and turned him around. “I’m not about to go and sleep with Jennifer Lawrence.”

“But she’s on your list,” Derek said, trying to keep the moroseness to a minimum. He had agreed to the list, after all. It wouldn’t do to start moping about it now.

“The list is a joke,” Stiles said. “A game. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. It was just about making sure we were comfortable with the knowledge that sometimes we’ll find other people attractive and that’s okay because we chose each other. I choose _you_.”

“Even over Jennifer Lawrence?” Derek asked, not letting hope gather in his chest.

“ _Yes_!” Stiles said, grinning. “You absolute moron, I don’t want _anyone_ who isn’t you. I pined over you for nearly six years before I got up the courage to ask you out. I am so crazy about you I have to give myself pep talks every time I have to leave you. Sometimes I get so scared that this is all some weird magic hallucination and I’m going to wake up in a world where you don’t want me, and I have to sit and reread every stupid text message you’ve ever sent me to remind myself that this is real.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “I, uh, well I don’t worry about this being a magic hallucination, but I agree with the general sentiment of what you just said.”

“That I love you?” Stiles said cautiously, sounding equal parts hopeful and nervous.

“Yeah, that,” Derek said. “I... that you.”

Stiles grinned and pulled Derek down into a kiss.

The new dating strategy, Derek thought to himself, was working very well. Very well indeed.


End file.
